RBC: 185 million tablets sold by end of 2014, Android to dominate long-term

[james99]

In a note to investors on Thursday, RBC Capital Markets General Manager Mike Abramsky reiterates the firm’s belief that the tablet market is poised to explode over the coming years. RBC forecasts a rise in global tablet revenue from $11 billion in 2010 to $70 billion in 2014, noting that leadership will be achieved through a differentiated user experience, innovation, value and the surrounding software ecosystem, among other things

[hugh]

Beautiful thing about being an analyst, you can make stuff up and you're never held accountable.

Where is Mary Meeker?

[audacity]

It's hard to say the sales numbers will be, but I'd agree with their prediction that in the long term Android will be the dominant tablet OS.

[hugh]

Based on what?

Suggesting a product that has a near 100% market share and is adored by consumers and critics is going to have a market share below 40% in three years is a huge prediction and would require some rationale.

Will Android tablets be massively cheaper, will the OS be massively superior, will the number and quality of Android Tablet apps be massively superior.

Unless you can answer yes to all three, then what possible rationale can you use to suggest why its sales will be greater than Apples?


RBC, the same guys that predicted $200 a barrel oil by 2010 and so on. The headlines are blogworthy but the economic analysis is missing.

[ScaryBob]

One thing is certain. That is Apple's share of the market will go down and Android's will go up. A lot of consumers are price sensitive so when $200 and $100 tablets start hitting the shelves, Apple's share will drop dramatically. I'm not predicting when that will happen though.

[YFZKoj]

Definately difficult to predict hard numbers but their prediction on Android is bang on.

Apple can only circle the fan boy wagon for so long until open source dominates market share. Even RIM sees the writing on the wall and are looking at ways to "play nice" with Android by looking at ways of integrating Android apps on their Playbook and OS6+ devices.

The closed business model that Apple employs has no long term viability particularily in this open global market. Apple changed the game there is no doubt but they need to adapt in order to stay relavent.

[hugh]

Definately difficult to predict hard numbers but their prediction on Android is bang on.

Can you explain that sentence?

[audacity]

Will Android tablets be massively cheaper, will the OS be massively superior, will the number and quality of Android Tablet apps be massively superior.

You imply these things are required, and by a substantial margin (by your using word "massively"). I think that there will be many vendors who will be selling Android tablets, many of which will innovate with hardware in ways are important to consumers.

I can't speak for other users, but in my case I want a tablet that focuses on having a great browsing experience, allowing me to use a bunch of different cloud services. By far, the app I use the most on my iPad is Safari, and iPad Safari browsing experience is pretty weak.

1. No tabbed tab UI. Switching between the different browser "pages" on Safari is a pretty slow process.
2. Authenticating on web pages is rough, especially because I typically use strong passwords and the iOS keyboard makes me switch back and forth between different special character screens to enter my passwords. At least let me have a numeric row.
3. Due to the keyboard weakness mentioned above, the fact that Safari has no support for remembering passwords is particularly frustrating. Maybe it would make sense to allow 3rd party keyboard "apps".
4. Support browser extensions and Flash.
5. Don't require me to use iTunes as it is a horrible piece of bloated software. Let the device update itself (like Android, webOS, etc) and not be tied to a particular PC/Mac.
6. Higher resolution display.
7. Proper multitasking UI. I like the webOS metaphor. Copy that.

If a tablet vendor did a better job at at the browsing experience, they will be able to sell me my next tablet. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't seem to care as much about the web. They seem to be focused on selling apps on the app store.

Fortunately for Google, HP and RIM, Apple seems to be setting the bar pretty low in this area. So I hope that they can do better. Massively better.

[NeilN]

Originally Posted by DancesWithLysol

3. Due to the keyboard weakness mentioned above, the fact that Safari has no support for remembering passwords is particularly frustrating.

Safari does have an option to remember passwords. Check your Autofill settings.

As for predictions, if you want a laugh, check what the "experts" have said about the forecasted drop in marketshare of the iPod (oops) and how the iPhone would destroy Apple (double oops).

[NeilN]

Originally Posted by hugh

Beautiful thing about being an analyst, you can make stuff up and you're never held accountable.

Where is Mary Meeker?

Abramsky's November 2008 prediction:
http://www.cultofmac.com/rbc-recessi...0-revenue/4719

Hey, he was only off by 10 million iPhones!

[audacity]

Safari does have an option to remember passwords. Check your Autofill settings.

Okay, I just tested this. I turned on that option (didn't know about it, thanks). Then I went to the Consumer Reports website, clicked login, entered my credentials, clicked logout. When I clicked login again, my credentials were not pre-filled nor did Safari ask if I wanted to save my credentials after I had clicked submit the first time.

When I try the same thing on a PC browser it works. I just tested on the PC to ensure the CR website wasn't doing anything funny that would cause this issue.

I think my complaint still stands.

[Hilman]

^ Safari is a horrible browser on the iPad, I like iCab much better as it remembers passwords and has a multi tab feature. The no Flash really is annoying, numerous times a day I run into that error, I look forward to replacing it with an Honeycomb tablet soon.

[99semaj]

The marketshare discussion is largely speculation at this point, but what everyone seems to be agreeing on is that the "post-PC era" is upon us, where PCs will shrink by every measure (volume, profit, share) to be replaced by tablets/pads/slates from somebody.

Like it or not, Apple has changed the market and that is unstoppable. Whether or not they can maintain leadership is a guessing game at this point.

[YFZKoj]

Sure.

It is difficult to accurately predict hard/absolute numbers when forecasting markets. The article suggests that the tablet market will grow to $70 Billion in 2014 and goes on to assert that Android will retain a 40% market share by 2014. Are these predicted numbers going to be absolutely correct? Most likely not. Perhaps Android will only have a 36% market share by 2014 and maybe the tablet market will grow to $100 Billion. We don't really know because there are too many variables to make a truly accurate prediction thus making it "difficult to predict hard numbers".

What the article is correct on, and there is no doubt about, is the fact that Android will become the dominant player in the tablet/mobile OS market at the cost of iOS and RIM. Apples own Steve Wozniak conceded as much in an interview he gave in November of 2010. http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100461915.html

[TorontoColin]

It will be a long time before anyone other than Apple dominates this market. By that point it could be a player we don't even think about. That said, I think Android has three huge advantages for tablets.

1. They will have compatible with all carriers, including T-Mobile/Sprint and the regionals in the US, as well as the new entrants in Canada
2. They will have a variety of form factors and prices, including many that undercut the iPad by a lot
3. They won't be stuck on a yearly revision cycle, meaning they can innovate and upgrade faster.

As an example, look at the LG Optimus Pad (aka G-Slate) which will incorporate 3D technology. If that technology takes off Apple may be stuck waiting months to respond, or else look like they're rushing a product to respond to the competition, which isn't Apple's style. While I'm skeptical of the 3D tablets, this is just an example of the kind of innovation Android tablets can bring with so many versions.